Currently, several computing system implemented financial management systems are available including, but is not limited to: computing system implemented personal financial management systems; computing system implemented small business financial management systems; computing system implemented general business financial management systems; computing system implemented tax preparation systems; computing system implemented accounting and/or invoicing systems; and various other electronic transaction driven data management systems, packages, programs, modules, or applications.
Many computing system implemented financial management systems help users manage their finances, by providing a centralized interface with banks, credit card companies, and other various financial institutions, for identifying and categorizing user financial transactions. Currently, computing system implemented financial management systems typically obtain financial transaction information, such as payee, payment amount, date, etc. via communication with banks, credit card providers, or other financial institutions, using electronic data transfer systems such as the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) specification, Web Direct, or various other systems for transferring financial transaction data.
As noted above, using computing system implemented financial management systems, the financial transaction information, such as payee, payment amount, date, etc. is used by the computing system implemented financial management system to categorize individual financial transactions as a particular type of income or expense. Some currently offered computing system implemented financial management systems then use this financial transaction information to track events, such as purchase events, and to provide various relative spending pattern reports or displays including “to date” data reports such as historical spending data reports in particular categories or for particular payees. Currently, these relative spending pattern reports are largely text based and “fixed” in the sense that in order to obtain a relative spending pattern report the user must define a specific timeframe for each relative spending pattern report. Then, in order to view a different timeframe of activity, a new relative spending pattern report must be requested with new specific time parameters.
Experience has shown that a user is more likely to adopt, and continue to use, a given computing system implemented financial management system and/or feature if the computing system implemented financial management system or feature is intuitive, includes a flexible presentation format, and presents the data and/or reports in a visual presentation, as opposed to a largely text based report. In addition, experience has also shown that the easier the user interface, and in particular, the less actual typing required to obtain useful data, the more likely it is that a user will implement and use the report feature and the given computing system implemented financial management system.